To Weather Any Storm
by ficlicious
Summary: The first and only time Gabriel had a hand in creating a human soul, he was young and naive.
1. Chapter 1

**Title**: To Weather Any Storm (1/5?)  
**Pairings/Characters**: Gabriel, Sam, God, assorted angels. Pre-Sabriel  
**Word Count**: 658  
**Rating: **G  
**Warnings: **None  
**Spoilers: **"Changing Channels" (5-08)  
**Summary**: The first and only time Gabriel had a hand in creating a human soul, he was young and naive.  
**A/N**: Intended as a lead-in to an AU that swerves off during "Hammer of the Gods" (5-19) and heads on through the Apocalypse. Rating likely to change as content is added.

The first and only time Gabriel had a hand in creating a human soul, he was young and naive. Adam and Eve had barely left the Garden for a life of hardship and toil when the Father took him aside, saying "This is the most important thing you will ever do, my son."

Gabriel didn't understand, but he trusted the Father, and trusted in Him. He took the raw, unfinished soul God gave him, and sat to work. Gabriel knew loyalty, and wove that into the soul. He knew compassion and love and humor, and wove these things too into the soul. And because he loved his brothers so, he added qualities they would find most pleasing. For Michael, dedication and strength. For Raphael, the capacity for healing with thought, deed and word. For Uriel, fondness of verse and song. For Selaphiel, humility and grace. For Jegudiel, hardiness of spirit and responsibility. For Barachiel, a willingness to protect others.

Even lost Heylel, Lucifer the Morningstar, was not forgotten, as Gabriel remembered his glory and his pride and his beauty and wove these things into the soul.

Gabriel poured himself, and his brothers, and his Father, into the soul, imbuing it with God's love and his own angelic Grace. When he had finished, he stood back and marveled at the thing he had shaped, the radiance of it, the sheer simple beauty.

God came to him then, and saw what he had done, and God smiled.

"This is a man," God said, "to weather any storm."

"When will he be born?" Gabriel asked, for in truth, he was eager to see the shape of the soul made flesh. Eager to meet the being into whom he had devoted so much of his time and essence.

God gathered the soul to him, cradling it gently in one mighty hand. "Not for many years to come," he said gently. "But when the time is right, you shall wield the hammer and make him unbreakable, and herald him into a new age for all humanity."

And God took the soul away, and Gabriel grew older and wiser and more experienced, and in time forgot about the soul, except in distant dreams.

He remembered it abruptly the night he was sent to tell a woman that she was pregnant with a boy she would name John. And again, five months later, when the task of informing Mary of her impending motherhood fell to him. He waited impatiently for the women to give birth, but despite his hopes, neither child felt the same. Bright and precious and radiant with love, but not at all the one he had shaped.

And he forgot again, as the age turned and he grew older and more jaded and miserable. The Father left Heaven and, without His presence to filter everything, Gabriel's tolerance for his brothers waned. Eventually he, too, left Heaven.

By the time the age passed into technology and apathy, he had buried himself in the Trickster persona so deeply, he no longer felt like an archangel, even to himself.

But he remembered suddenly, abruptly, one morning in Podunk Bumfuck, USA, right after delivering an alien abduction straight to some asshole who richly deserved it. When he felt the soul.

It was muted, not bright. Tainted by darkness, scarred with pain. All those things Gabriel had imbued into it had been touched with strife and toil. But underneath it all, the love, the radiance, the sheer simplicity of it. And brightest of all, the mark of God's hand, with an underlying resonance of angelic Grace. The signature of an artist to a masterpiece. A ephemeral tag scrawled on its wall like graffiti. _Gabriel was here._

Later that afternoon, he came face to face with Sam Winchester, and saw that soul shining out of dark brown eyes.


	2. Chapter 2

**Title**: To Weather Any Storm (2/5)  
**Pairings/Characters**: Gabriel, Sam, God, assorted angels. Pre-Sabriel  
**Word Count**: 1,691  
**Rating: **PG-13  
**Warnings: **None  
**Spoilers: **"Mystery Spot"  
**Author's Notes: **This completely got away from me. It started off with one thing, and halfway through went in a totally unexpected direction. I don't know how happy I am with it, but since this part is finished, I may as well post it.  
**Theme Music**: Jay-Z and Kanye West, "No Church in the Wild"

=0=

Gabriel had been the Trickster in one guise or another long enough to appreciate a good joke. Even when the joke was on him. He just simply could not understand the punch line here though.

He loitered, invisible, watching the Winchester brothers stride down the street. Sam looked a little ragged around the edges. Gabriel frowned. He had only cycled through one Tuesday; this did not bode well for his future sanity.

_You shall wield the hammer and make him unbreakable._

This wasn't exactly how he thought it would go.

"I don't know what the hell you're doing, Dad," he muttered, following along as they passed the arguing workmen ("_what do you want, a Pulitzer?")_ trying to get a piano into a second floor apartment. "But if anyone asks, I'm saying I got my sense of humor from you."

He got as close as he dared, almost too close as his Grace reacted to the portion of itself he'd left in Sam's soul a long time ago and Sam's eyes darted around uncertainly. Gabriel backed off a quick couple of paces and resumed studying the boys from afar.

Dean, he could dismiss almost without second thought. Contact lens cases had more depth than the elder Winchester. He liked women, and hunting, and his Impala and his horrible music. And he hated just about everything else with varying degrees. He had unswerving faith and blind devotion to his cause which, as far as Gabriel could tell without drawing too much attention to himself, seemed to be about keeping Sam safe and alive. Gabriel could appreciate that. But there was something about Dean, a holier-than-thou righteousness that smacked of MIkey's influence.

Michael was the least favorite of his brothers. Yes, even Luci was more favorite than Michael.

Sam. Ah, Sam. Lovely, brilliant, wounded Sam. Gabriel wanted to wrap his wings around him and drag him somewhere no one and nothing could ever hurt him again. Just watching him brought back all those ancient, naïve longings to meet and spend time with and watch over the soul within him.

Gabriel was older and wiser than that now, and the world had moved on from personal guardian angels. But that didn't mean the urge wasn't there. And it didn't hurt to dream, did it?

He peered closer, letting just a hint of his power out if its cage. The wounds on Sam's soul were twisted, deep, and ugly scars. Some were fresh, others ancient. Something stirred in Gabriel. A rage fed y eons of longing, because no matter how much he tried to forget himself, his brothers, and his Father, he could never, _ever _forget Sam.

Not now.

He wouldn't forget the oily black lines snaking through the pure silver. Wouldn't forget the fraying edges. Wouldn't forget the core of him

Which brought him to his next question. Who had _dared _to injure his…

His what? His soul? His human? His pet? His beloved?

It was confusing. And Gabriel hated being confused.

Suddenly discontent with watching, Gabriel snapped his fingers and the old geezer from the diner ran Dean down in his shitbox car. Gabriel chortled for a moment – who knew that Dean Winchester could spin so gracefully in the air; how acrobatic was _that_? – but then he caught the look on Sam's face.

Terror. Heartbreak. Loss. Grief. Rage.

Pain.

Pain _Gabriel_ put there.

Helpless, no longer laughing, he watched Sam cradling Dean's bloodied body in the street, the old man slowly getting out of his car to stare in disbelief. Gabriel's head went down. He designed that soul, Dad-dammit. He should be protecting and nurturing it, not tormenting it for cheap laughs.

Who dared scar Sam Winchester's soul? Looked like this time, it was _him_.

He watched as long as he could bear. When he could take it no longer, he snapped his fingers. The cycle reset.

**OoOoOoO**

_"Heeeeeeeat of the moment!"_

"Rise and shine, Sammy!"

**OoOoOoO**

Gabriel took the next few cycles off, set Groundhog Day on auto-pilot and random selection, then took himself to the farthest corner of town where he was certain Dean and Sam wouldn't go. He sat, invisible, atop the bank with his elbows on his knees. He wasn't brooding, and he'd shiv anyone who dared say he was.

Above him, the sky roiled as Dean died again and again. The sun raced across the sky, reversed itself, seized and shook, and Gabriel did his best to ignore it. He couldn't, though, because every death was another wound, another cut, another stab, to Sam.

What the hell had he been thinking? That this was funny? That he could drill some half-baked lesson into Sam's head about Dean's impending death?

He used to have more finesse than this. He had been an excellent teacher at one time in his long existence. His lessons had subtlety, meaning, metaphor. He had instructed angels and men on many metaphysical levels with refinement and grace. Once upon a time, he had been sought after.

Was he seriously reduced to cribbing the plots of Bill Murray movies?

He had to stop this. Reveal himself. Explain himself, if he could. Before he did more damage than he could heal. Resolutely, he stood up, fingers raised to snap. He didn't _have _to snap, but it was habit.

Suddenly, he was elsewhere. A place God had once taken him, given him a task, and smiled at what he created. A place he had no name for, except _there_. Sunlight streamed through overhead foliage in pretty ribbons, lions and lambs mingled. He was alone, but he wasn't _alone_. The presence of God filled him, warm, alive, loving. Oh, Father, the _love_. Gabriel tipped his head back, closed his eyes and basked in it.

It hurt to take in, he'd been so long without it. His Grace flared, brightened, wings extending in all directions with the feathers spread. He drank it in, revelling in the sensation of the Presence. Light bathed him, bright and familiar and he was _happy_ to the point of tears.

He almost missed the nuances, but they sharpened until he had no choice but to take notice of them. Gabriel blinked, faltered. There was gentle warning in there, admonition. Fond chiding. Suddenly, Gabriel remembered he was still pissed at the old man, and he folded his wings back into his vessel, trying not to feel like a sulking child.

"Nice to see you too, Dad," he said, and even the Presence couldn't soothe away the bitterness. He studied the shifting light, the interplay of shadow and sun. It had been a long, long time, but he hadn't lost the knack of reading the subtleties and the meanings. This was going to be a distinctly one-sided conversation. They usually were. "Thanks for, you know, letting us think you were dead all this time."

Dappling light over a leaf.

Gabriel snorted. "I don't give a shit, Dad. _You _left first!"

The wind in the branches.

"What do you mean, this was for our own good? Do You have any _idea _the chaos you leaving created? Oh, wait a minute. What am I saying? You're _God_. Of _course_ you know. It's all a part of your Plan, right? Suuuuure, let's let Luci and Michael tear each other to pieces, and take the world down while they're at it."

A fleeting glimpse of a butterfly. Wind and sun. The laughing of a brook.

Gabriel listened, and watched, and heard and saw. There were good reasons. Problem was, he just wasn't _buying _any of it. Perhaps he'd been too long on Earth, too long away from Heaven. The initial giddiness, the sheer joy of the Presence, was fading, leaving Gabriel with his confusion, his hurt and his anger. "I'm not your errand boy anymore," he snarled. "I don't _do _messages. This was your Plan all along? Leave us floundering, let those two sorry sonsabitches fumble their way through death and sacrifice and…" His breath caught as he thought of the ugly black streaks marring Sam's soul. "Why did you do it?"

Sunlight flared, and so did Gabriel's wings. Not just the two he kept for show. All six of them. He flung out a hand, as if that would do anything against God. Instinct was hard to break, though. "No more cryptic bullshit, Dad. You want me to play carrier pigeon, you want me to guide that sad sasquatch, you fucking _tell me why!"_

God did.

Gabriel was very, very quiet. The light receded, ebbed, lingering here on a twig, there on a flower. Eventually Gabriel was alone again, truly alone in the place he had once shaped a soul, lost in thought. Twilight touched the sky, and Gabriel was wreathed in shadows.

Finally, his head rose, eyes canted towards Heaven. At least two of his six brothers still resided there, and he now had a very good idea of exactly what they were up to. "Fuck you all," he said. "And your mother twice."

**OoOoOoO**

He still didn't like it, but now he was _motivated_. Gabriel threw himself into Groundhog Day curse with all the flair and subtlety of a train wreck. Dean's deaths became bloodier, more vicious and more ridiculous with every passing reset. No matter what Sam tried to do, Gabriel was there to counter it, slide around it, reverse it. He _hated _that lost, hopeless, despairing look on Sam's face every morning he woke up and it was still Tuesday.

But Gabriel had his marching orders now. He wasn't wielding the hammer. He _was _the fucking hammer, and if Sam didn't come out of this stronger, wiser and with more respect for his environment

_Look, Sam_, he said every Tuesday morning. _Look how dangerous everything is. Look how much respect you have to give everything. Look at how you can use your environment to your advantage. Look at how your opponent will use it to theirs. Steel yourself to loss. Examine every detail. Miss nothing. Succeed. Excel. Survive. _

Wield the hammer.

He would apologize later, and explain himself later. When this was all over.

If Sam wasn't unbreakable after this, Gabriel would feed him to a moose.


	3. Chapter 3

**Title**: To Weather Any Storm (3/5?)  
**Pairings/Characters**: Gabriel, Sam, Dean, God, assorted angels. Pre-Sabriel  
**Word Count**: 2,159  
**Rating: **R  
**Warnings: **Language, Angst  
**Spoilers: **General Season 3  
**Theme Music: **Maroon 5, "One More Night". As before, played on loop while I wrote this.  
**Author's Notes: **This is looking longer than 5 parts right now, as things just keep getting away from me.

=0=

Gabriel had to stop following Sam around like a lost puppy, because it was driving him batshit. Across the nation, untold thousands were going without their poetic justice, without their ironic serendipities, and Gabriel couldn't care less. What kind of a Trickster was he anyway? Oh, right. He wasn't.

He followed the brothers across the country, trailing along as they hunted for a way out of Dean's contract. Killing Dean over and over again had woken something in him, something that had been asleep for a very long time, and he had to resist the urge to righteously smite the obnoxious mud monkey on an average of once a minute. What the _hell _was he thinking, selling his soul for his brother? Arrogant ass.

He forced himself not to intervene in the police station, practically having to sit on his hands in the corner of the cell so a stray finger wouldn't twitch and squish Ruby to an unidentifiable smear on the wall. He could do it, too. She was a pissant low-level demon and he was Gabriel, Bearer of the Word, Herald of Judgement, arch-freaking-angel of the Lord. Jericho's walls had been more challenge than Ruby would present.

But he forced himself not to. His Father had a _Plan_, after all. Eye roll. Cautious eye roll, though. Daddy hadn't gone Old Testament in a while, but that didn't mean He wasn't still capable of it. Gabriel might be flippant, irreverent and pissed off at Dad, but that didn't mean he wanted Daddy's wrath on his head. He liked it right where it was, attached to his neck.

He stayed with the Winchesters more off than on, an invisible presence in the back of the Impala, trying not to gouge his ears out with Dean's questionable taste in music blaring constantly. If he nudged the volume from time to time, and if he broke the radio that one time, well, that was purely accidental.

He'd shiv anyone who tried to tell him differently.

He stayed through the Ghostfacers (who amused him to _hell_), and the zombies and more demon crap than he could shake a Pixie Stick at. He played nice, and let the boys do their thing, though good old Doc Benton _sorely _tested his restraint when he tried to take those puppy dog eyes.

He may have nudged Dean towards locking the psychopath in a concrete coffin for all eternity. He _may _have. Hey, it sounded pretty poetic to him, and he had appearances to keep, if only to himself.

And all the while, he was drawn to Sam. Drawn to that soul. Drawn to the echo of himself buried deep in blood and muck, where the core of the most beautiful thing he had ever seen was hidden.

It was so _hard _not to reach out, reach in, but Gabriel behaved himself. Human scholars said that Hell was the absence of God, but they were clueless. Hell was _this, _being so close to perfection, having it within reach, and not permitting oneself to touch it.

Then Dean's contract came due.

=0=

_Dad, if you want me to do anything, now would be a good time to let me know._

Gabriel hovered next to Sam, his patience with God, the world, and nearly everything else almost at its end. He didn't like hellhounds; they made him want to flare his wings, puff up like a spitting cat. He'd get around to smiting this one sooner or later. He steeled his ears to Sam's desperate pleas, ignored Dean's agonized cries, ignored the snarls of the hellhound (for now), and narrowed his eyes at Lilith.

The hellhound knew he was in the room, but ignored him in favor of ripping apart its prey. Lilith, on the other hand, didn't. Not yet, anyway. Gabriel's eyes narrowed. His whole body, physical and metaphysical, quivered with tension.

_Any time now, Dad._

The hellhound vanished, its job done. Lilith smiled triumphantly and stepped forward with an upraised hand, practically salivating with the nearness of Sam's death. If she'd been more vigilant, if she hadn't been caught up in the moment, she would have seen Gabriel smile, savage and vicious. She would have felt the tendril of God's Presence ghost through the room. She would have felt the importance of the moment.

But she was a stupid demon bitch, and Gabriel wouldn't disabuse her of that.

Time slowed.

Lilith raised her hand.

Light flared along her palm.

Sam cried out.

Gabriel stepped between them, dropped his veil and went apocalyptic on her ass.

His vessel was unassuming, short and generally non-threatening, which was the whole point when one were trying to fly under Heaven's radar. But appearances could be deceiving, and even affable, unremarkable bodies were downright all-out shitting-your-pants scary when they were crowned with fire, wreathed in flame, framed with the six blazing wings of a seraphim and eyes burning with God's Authority.

He really enjoyed the way the blood drained from her face, the melting of her victorious expression into confusion and then, as she realized she was fingertip-to-fingertip with a seriously pissed-off, seriously juiced-up angel, stark terror of a flavor he hadn't seen since the Great Flood.

Fuck being a Trickster. Being an archangel was _awesome_.

Lilith spread her fingers, desperate and cornered. She was trying to do something to Sam, but Gabriel had had enough of _that _to last a dozen lifetimes. "No," he said, voice ringing with the Power and the Glory, and Lilith cowered before him. "You. Don't. Touch. Him. Ever."

He snapped her control over his Sam – _his Sam _– with a negligent thought, and heard Sam fall to the floor behind him. He tilted his head, quirked an eyebrow, raising his fingers to snap. Practically _daring _her to try something else.

Lilith evacuated instead, pouring out of her host's mouth in a column of inky black smoke.

Smart move.

Gabriel let her flee, because there was nowhere she could run except Hell. Besides, she was a Seal of Lucifer's prison, and he didn't want his little brother wandering out of his playpen before he was supposed to.

Dad had a _Plan_, after all.

Eye roll.

It took Gabriel a few minutes to tuck himself back in, get himself back together. It had been so _long _since he let himself stretch quite that way – eons, really – and he was rusty on retracting the wings, banking the holy fire and pulling his Grace back into the vessel. But, just like falling off a bike, it was natural after a time, and when he managed to reduce himself to just the physical world, he shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans and turned around the face Sam.

Who was staring, dumbstruck at him, from the heap he'd collapsed into on the floor. Gabriel closed his eyes. The spark of hope in Sam's expression was heartbreaking, because he knew what was coming next.

"Is it Tuesday?"

Gabriel swallowed, flinching at the pain and desperation in Sam's voice. He forced himself to shake his head. "Sorry kiddo," he said, gently and thickly. "'Fraid not."

=0=

"You're not a Trickster."

Gabriel looked up from John Winchester's journal, which he'd been disinterestedly flipping through since Sam had returned to the motel room. He cleared his throat and closed the worn book. Sam was watching him with red-rimmed eyes that burned with exhaustion, and Gabriel's heart broke all over again. "No, I'm not."

"What are you?" Even to the dull, dimmed senses of his vessel, he could see Sam was struggling with what he'd seen, with what had happened. "You had wings, and fire and light and…" He trailed off, staring at Gabriel with a lost expression.

Gabriel smiled a half-smile, but it didn't reach his eyes. "They call me Gabriel."

Sam blinked. "As in the archangel?"

He nodded once. "As in the archangel."

"There's no such thing." It was said almost by rote, but Gabriel winced as if Sam had screamed it.

"Sorry to burst your bubble, kid," he replied, but tried to make it as gentle as possible, "but there really is. Did you really think there'd be demons without angels to balance out the other side?"

Sam was silent for a long moment, just staring at Gabriel with those haunted eyes. Gabriel eyed him back, wanting to fidget but forcing himself to stillness.

And suddenly, Sam was _there_, in his face, grabbing his shoulders, shaking him like a rag doll. "Then you fly your feathery ass down to hell and you _bring Dean back!"_

The shock of physical contact, which he'd been _so good _and avoided for _so long_, was almost too much to bear. Sam's emotions jostled down his arms and into Gabriel like a tsunami, fury and fear and pain and rage and hate and exhaustion, so overwhelming and immediate his mind overloaded. Distantly, he heard Sam ranting about angels and intervention and hell and demons and cowardice and cruelty and contracts and hellhounds, and Sam was cursing a blue streak and blaspheming but he couldn't react to any of it because with the emotions came the connection he craved and feared and Sam was asking him to go to hell and find his brother and Gabriel didn't want to deny him, he really didn't, not when it was now plainly obvious that Sam was his and he was Sam's and it was within his power but he couldn't because Dad had a Plan eye roll and Gabriel was in agony with conflicting desires and…

Only millennia of discipline allowed Gabriel to bring his thoughts back under control, though it took every iota of willpower he had, and then some.

With effort, he wrenched his Grace back from Sam. It pulled like taffy, unwilling to be separated now that it had finally, _finally_, been reunited, but Gabriel made it do as it was told. It was messy, leaving pieces behind and stealing pieces of Sam, which would make pulling back again even harder, but he would just have to live with that.

If he could.

Sam was silent again. With trembling hands, Gabriel reached up and covered Sam's fingers with his own. He tried not to drink in the warmth, because this was _so _not the time and was wildly inappropriate, but he was only an archangel, not a saint. "Some things," he said in a tone that shook as much as his fingers, "are not in my power, kiddo. I'd do it in a heartbeat if I could."

Sam's jaw worked overtime, which Gabriel had come to identify as his Winchesters-don't-cry mechanism. "Then what good are you?" he asked bitterly, and yanked his hands away from Gabriel.

Gabriel was asking himself the same thing.

"Get out," Sam said, and sat on the end of Dean's bed, where Dean's bloody body lay, and put his head in his hands. His voice was utterly devoid of emotion, and that hurt. A lot. "Just get out."

Gabriel made himself scarce.

=0=

Gabriel kept watch over Sam that night, and several nights thereafter. He kept a wary eye on Heaven, realizing belatedly that his blaze of power might alert interested parties to his location and, indeed, his continued existence. He had worked very hard to convince his brethren and his brothers in particular that he was no longer in the game, after all, and he worried that he had shot that all to shit with his little display.

Heaven, he was relieved and somewhat disgruntled to realize, didn't seem to give a rat's ass about him anymore.

Well. Fuck them too.

Gabriel didn't understand why Sam didn't tell Bobby about him, about the existence of angels. If he had to wager a guess, he thought it was because Sam really, truly didn't believe him after all. That maybe it was still Tuesday and soon he'd wake up and Asia would be playing that terrible song on the radio. Or it was Wednesday, and the Trickster was still playing his vicious joke on him.

The pieces he'd inadvertently taken of Sam seemed to agree with that train of thought.

He shadowed Sam almost constantly. Stood by his side at the funeral. Hovered invisibly over his shoulder as he researched ways of resurrecting the dead. Watched him discard method after method as unacceptable. Watched him wear himself out trying to make a deal to bring Dean back.

_That_ part, Gabriel didn't like at all. The few crossroads demons Sam managed to contact got a tiny hint of the power Gabriel was capable of wielding, and they all backed off pretty damn quickly.

The time came when he couldn't bear to watch Sam suffer anymore, and he went elsewhere. Hawaii, Antarctica, the dark side of the moon, Olympus Mons, the Great Red Spot. He played no tricks, caused no chaos, consumed no sweet snacks, was for the first time ever a quiet non-entity in the world.

Sugar stocks plummeted in his absence.

=0=


	4. Chapter 4

**Title**: To Weather Any Storm (4/5?)  
**Pairings/Characters**: Gabriel, Sam, Dean, God, assorted angels. Pre-Sabriel  
**Word Count**: 2,914  
**Rating: **R  
**Warnings: **Language, Angst, Wings  
**Spoilers: None.**  
**Theme Music: **  
**Author's Notes: **

=0=

Two weeks after he left Sam's side, Gabriel received a prayer.

It happened routinely, usually from some Catholic schmuck wanting some intercession or another. He was venerated in their hierarchy as a saint (which was _hilarious_ when he thought about it) and he _always _got feast day lip-service and general mass-target prayers. He just as routinely ignored them.

Gabriel didn't make _anyone's _life easier. Not even his own, apparently.

But this prayer was a beacon in the endless void of space to which he'd removed himself.

This prayer, he couldn't ignore. Wouldn't, even if you paid him in Godiva chocolate body paint.

This prayer came from Sam Winchester.

It sang through the ether, vibrating his bones with such clarity he was abruptly jolted out of his contemplation of natural ice formations on Pluto. Not hiding. _Contemplating_. (If he was being honest with himself, yeah, he was hiding. But after leaving Heaven, he'd developed an allergy to straight answers, and he didn't even want to give himself one.) He paused, head canted slightly, confusion and hope and fear warring for dominance in his mind. After a moment, he shook his head. Wishful thinking.

The call came again. A word. His name. Shouted into his ear as clearly as if Sam were standing next to him.

_Gabriel!_

It was pointless to resist. He didn't even try. Didn't even want to try.

In a flutter of wings, Pluto was once again an uninhabited rock.

=0=

Sam wasn't sure when his life had turned into an episode of _Touched By An Angel_, but somewhere along the line, it had. Maybe it always had been, but he'd just been too blind to see it before now.

He paced in his motel room restlessly, swiping a hand over his face. His cell phone buzzed, but he ignored it. Dean was dead, and Bobby never called him, so that left Ruby as the only other person to have his number. And he really didn't feel like dealing with her poorly-concealed attempts at getting him to turn himself into some inhuman demon-killing machine.

The idea was tempting, very tempting and, if Sam were being honest with himself, had he been in a different frame of mind, one he would probably have accepted. Had he been in the same frame of mind as immediately following Dean's death, there wouldn't have been a question. Anything to hunt down the bitch that had taken his brother from him. Anything to lash back against Hell's army. Anything to kill a demon.

But he wasn't in that frame of mind, and hadn't been for some time. He should have felt alone. He should have felt abandoned. He should have felt soul-crushing loss and grief and fury. And he might have, if not for the dreams.

Sam didn't dream of peaceful forests. He didn't dream in ribbons of sunlight, voices of wind, songs of birds. He didn't dream of warm light and overwhelming love. His dreams were dark and dreary. His fire was terrifying and burning, not cheery and welcoming. He dreamed in blood and gunsmoke, not water and cloud.

Gabriel had done something to him, and Sam wanted to know what.

Sam plunged his hands into his hair, wanting to pull it out by the roots. Where the hell was that feathered menace, anyway? Everything he'd read indicated angels heard every prayer directed their way. He'd spent hours researching the prayer to use, a long-winded entreaty in tongue-twisting Latin, but it seemed to have no effect. Was Gabriel just ignoring him?

Sam didn't have the patience to wait for the archangel to get his head out of his ass. He wasn't above chanting his name over and over again until he got the bastard's attention. "Gabriel!"

On the first chant, with a sound like the whisper of feathers, Gabriel was there.

Sam thought he was prepared to see him again. Thought he was able to hold onto his anger and confusion. Thought he'd be able to demand answers, stay resolute. See through his inevitable bullshit.

But meeting those golden eyes, wary and bright, made all of his preparations pointless. He was blindsided by the sharp, sudden burn of _need_. Instinct drove him across the room in three long strides, some undefinable urge for physical contact screaming through his head. He registered the startled look on Gabriel's face in the instant he lunged for the angel.

Wings fluttered. His arms closed on air. Bewildered, he stared at the empty space in front of him, unable to comprehend what had just happened. Had he hallucinated the angel?

The clearing of a throat made him spin around. No, not hallucinating. Gabriel was now on the other side of the room, arms crossed and a bemused look on his face. "Do we need to have a talk about personal boundaries, Sammy?"

Sam swallowed a curse and ran his hands through his hair again. This was not at all going how he planned.

=0=

Yeah, okay. He panicked. Sue him.

Sam stared at Gabriel, and Gabriel stared right back, eyebrow quirked. "I'm happy to see you too but I don't really do clingy."

Sam ground the heels of his palms into his eyes. "What the hell did you do to me?" He sounded like he was speaking through gritted teeth. "I'm supposed to be pissed. I _was _pissed." He raised his head and leveled a baleful glare at Gabriel. "You did something. What did you do?"

"Nothing recent comes to mind." Technically true. Sam had done it all.

Sam started pacing and Gabriel eyed him warily, ready to blink away again if Sam came at him again. Sam couldn't touch him, or he'd be completely undone. "I don't buy it," Sam said. "My brother's torn apart by a hell hound right in front of me. I should be a wreck."

Gabriel arched an eyebrow, glancing around the motel room. There were empty beer cans, discarded take-out containers. The garbage can was nearly full, the bed barely slept in. Books and papers strewn everywhere. Clipped articles tacked onto walls, along with handwritten notes. A laptop computer sitting half-open and abandoned on the table, next to a cell phone. Obviously not the room of a man right in the head. "And this is you well-adjusted and coping? Are you in therapy? Because I think your shrink owes you a refund."

"Can you be serious for a moment?"

"I can, yes. But it makes me break out in hives. If I develop a rash, you have to rub lotion on me." It was out of his mouth before Gabriel's mental filter caught it.

Sam, apparently ignoring it, stopped right in front of him. Gabriel took a step back, but all Sam did was stare at him with those lost puppy-dog eyes. "You're an angel."

"_Arch_angel. There's a difference."

Sam waved a hand impatiently. "Whatever. You're an archangel."

Gabriel nodded. "Yes."

"With wings."

"Yes."

"Halo? White gown? Harp?"

"I'm neither a tree topper nor a hippy, Sam." Sam's eyes bored into him, and Gabriel sighed. "Technically, it's a crown of fire, white gowns are for brides and babies, and I'm not really all that musically inclined." No need to bring the Horn into it. Not that Gabriel knew where it currently was anyway. "Satisfied?"

Sam paced some more, hands shifting from behind his back to in his hair to scrubbing his cheeks. He looked intensely lost in thought. Gabriel really wished he knew what was going through Sam's mind, but the only way that would happen was if they touched again. And _that _was not something Gabriel wanted to do accidentally or lightly.

The silence stretched on, and Gabriel shifted from foot to foot. "Was that all you wanted? Fashion and music tips for the celestially-inclined? Am I free to flutter back to my fluffy cloud now?"

Sam blinked, and Gabriel wondered if he'd forgotten he had company. He certainly looked startled to be reminded he wasn't alone. Maybe if he just…

_No_. He had to stay _away _from the big lumbering lummox. No touching the human. Bad archangel. Bad archangel.

"Why?" Sam burst out, and Gabriel skipped back out of reach of a waving arm. "Why did you step in front of me when Lilith had me pinned? Why did you help me? Why did you… leave when I told you to, and come back when I asked you to? Where have you _been_ all this time? Why aren't there angels keeping demons locked up where they can't hurt anyone?"

Gabriel sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. How was he going to get out of this? "Those are questions with big, complicated answers, kid. You sure you want to know?"

Sam nodded, sitting on the edge of the bed with his hands clasped between his knees. He watched Gabriel so intently Gabriel got the sudden mental picture of a hound dog focused in on a treat waving in front of his nose. "One at a time," Sam said. "First, why did you save me from Lilith?"

Figures he'd start with the one question Gabriel wanted to avoid answering at all costs. He considered how to phrase it, and decided to go with the bare minimum. "Because I wanted to. I was there, you were there. You weren't exactly kicking ass and taking names, so I decided to help you out. I was always a sucker for damsels in distress."

Sam's eyes narrowed, but he let it slide. "So why you? Why not some other angel?"

"That one, I can't answer. There aren't any other angels, arch- or otherwise, wandering around on good old planet Earth anymore. It's just me. If I had to guess, they're all buttoned up nice and tight in Heaven, sitting on their clouds, playing their harps, munching on popcorn while the world goes to shit below them."

Whoa. He never realized he could sound that bitter.

Sam was quiet for a moment. "So where's God in all this?"

Uh oh. Now he knew what he was going to sound like. "Dad fucked off a very long time ago, left all us latchkey kids to play loud music, throw wild parties and burn the house down." Yep. Still royally pissed, even if God had been making vague overtures of late. "Where did he go? Your guess is as good as mine. Probably better, since I stopped giving a shit about the same time he abandoned us all."

Sam straightened, taken aback by the venom and the vehemence. "You sound angry," he said, tone neutral.

Gabriel barked a short, sharp laugh. "You should know what it's like to have an absent father you don't understand," he said, and instantly regretted it, because Sam's expression shuttered at the reminder of John Winchester. He shifted his weight again, a habit of discomfort he was _really_ starting to hate. "Sorry," he muttered.

Sam shook his head. Gabriel really hoped Sam wasn't going to continue to press him on the God issue, because he was pretty sure he'd use up all of Sam's natural life span if he really got started on his family. "Why can't you go get Dean? You said it was out of your power, but… You're an angel."

"_Arch_—you know what? Never mind. Technically speaking, it's not out of my power. But I can't just play tourist in Hell any time I feel like it. I have to be _commanded _to go. And I think we just covered why that ain't gonna happen any time soon."

Sam nodded, and his eyes slid away, lost in thought. Gabriel permitted himself to relax marginally. Sam was buying it. Not that he was lying, but there were fairly large chunks of truth he was leaving out. He had just about convinced himself he was out of jail free when Sam's head rose with a suspicious, sharp expression that dropped the bottom out of Gabriel's stomach.

"Why did you come back when I said your name?" Uh oh. "You're pretty well-known to Christians. You must hear a lot of prayers." Damn. "Surely you don't answer all of them." Double damn. "So why mine? The _first _time I tried it, at that."

Shit, shit, _shit_. It was only long, long habit that allowed Gabriel to flash his most annoying smirk, to spin a lie in his most casual, dismissive tone. "Because you're fun to torment."

Sam's eyebrows went up in clear disbelief. "Really."

"Come on, Sam. You don't _really_ think you're all that important in the grand scheme of things, do you? Sugarplum, you're a blip on my radar. A footnote in my day planner. A fleeting fancy that I'll get tired of and kill sooner or later." His mouth was running away with him again, and he abruptly shut it.

Sam stood, and Gabriel _really _didn't like that look on his face. He'd seen it before, most recently right before Sam lunged for him. "I don't believe you."

He snorted, but panic began fluttering in his chest. "Someone thinks mighty highly of himself. C'mon, Sam. You're a passing interest, one rapidly boring me."

"Uh huh. Sure." Sam took a step forward. Gabriel took a step back. "Why don't you want me to come near you?"

Well, that one was easy, and it had that necessary ring of truth Gabriel desperately needed right now. "Um, let me think. Maybe because you've tried to _kill me_? You think I'm going to let you anywhere near me when you might have some sharp piece of wood you want to shove into my chest?"

Sam shook his head, and took another step forward. Gabriel took another step back. "It wouldn't work anyway."

"Yeah, but it still hurts!"

"I don't believe you." Another step, and Gabriel backed into the wall so unexpectedly he yelped and jumped. Sam took advantage of the distraction and closed the distance. Gabriel whirled back, eyes wide and, as Sam reached for him, he threw up his arms and threw up his power and stopped Sam, just barely, from touching him.

"Come on," Sam taunted, held at bay less than an inch away by only Gabriel's wavering will. "You could throw me across the room. You could throw me to the moon. If you didn't want me here, I wouldn't be here. I'd be in a wormhole, or on the other side of the world, or spinning somewhere in outer space."

True, true and true. Not that Gabriel would admit to it.

"Are you afraid of me?"

"Please."

"Then what is it? What possible reason could you have for not wanting me anywhere near you?"

Gabriel frantically racked his brain, but came up blank.

"Why am I dreaming of meadows and sunlight and you?"

He started, so badly the barricade slipped and Sam's hand closed on his wrist and Gabriel was suddenly done resisting.

Light bloomed, and wings stretched, and muscles relaxed and he could _feel _Sam's loneliness and longing and confusion and this time the connection went both ways and Gabriel tried to exert some measure of control over what Sam was receiving, but he had no experience with this kind of connection and trying to catch his memories was like trying to catch and hold rain and things kept slipping through his fingers and he didn't know if it was Sam or him that registered pleasant surprise at finally knowing what peace felt like and it was all so much but so _right_ and maybe this was what God had intended all this time but he was tired oh so very tired of fighting and it felt so good to let go and he wasn't even sure which _he _he was anymore and his brain shut down all higher function under the pressure of the tidal wave of information and for the first time _ever_ he simply just _was._

=0=

They lay tangled together, Sam curling his massive frame around Gabriel, who mantled his wings around them both. The angel's fingers drifted idly through his hair, made more accessible by the fact that his cheek seemed glued to Gabriel's chest. He wasn't sure how they'd gotten onto the bed, or exactly what had happened, but he'd never been so comfortable or felt so loved in his whole life.

"You alright there, Sammy?" The archangel sounded as tired and content as he felt. Sam wanted to tell him he was, but that would be a lie. He didn't consider lying to Gabriel an option anymore.

"Dean's dead," he whispered, and the muscle in his jaw worked.

"I know," came the soft response, and the feathers pressed closer.

Winchesters didn't cry. That had been drilled into his head almost as long as he could remember. No matter what, Winchesters didn't cry. Broken bones, burns, cuts, scraped knees, bites, concussions, illness, death of friends, death of family. Winchesters stood stony-faced through all of it. Sam heard his father's voice in his head, rationalizing it all under showing weakness.

But with Gabriel's thumping under his ear, Gabriel's wings enveloping him, Gabriel's fingers in his hair, those reasons seemed silly. Ridiculous. There was no monster here, but the echo of his father's voice. No one to point out weakness.

His eyes stung. "Dean's dead."

"I know," Gabriel murmured.

He swallowed convulsively. "Dean's dead," he said, and he had zero control over the tears anymore. But it was okay, because there were no monsters here anymore, and Gabriel would squish to a bloody pulp anyone who tried to prove otherwise.


	5. Chapter 5

**Title**: To Weather Any Storm (5/7)  
**Author**: **ficlicious**  
**Rating**: R  
**Pairing**: Sam/Gabriel  
**Warnings**: Explicit Language, Pre-Slash (Pairing Sam/Gabriel). Violence. Angst. Wings.  
**Spoilers**: General S3, notably "Mystery Spot". General Season 4. Season 5, up to "Hammer of the Gods"  
**Disclaimer**: I'm not making any money from this. Kripke just makes awesome toys.  
**Note**: Intended as a lead-in to an AU that swerves off during Hammer of the Gods (5x19) and carries through the Apocalypse.  
**Characters**: Sam, Gabriel, God, Dean, Castiel, Ruby, Assorted Angels, Others  
**Genres**: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Drama, Spiritual  
**Summary**: He wasn't always a trickster. Once upon a time, he'd been an archangel and, once upon a time, he had a hand in creating a very special soul. The days harbinging Lucifer's return are making it harder for him to stay away from that soul and, to tell the truth, he really doesn't want to anyway.  
**Theme Music**: Ryan Star, "Brand New Day"; The White Stripes, "Seven Nation Army" (Glitch Mob Remix); Alex Clare, "Too Close"  
**Word Count**: 2,331

=0=

In the wee hours of the morning, Sam had passed into an exhausted, emotionally-drained sleep. Gabriel wished he could join him. It would be nice to get a break from the constant stream of thought, but sleep was for mortal creatures. He supposed he could retreat deeply into his vessel, let his meatsuit get some rest, but it might disturb dear old Caillus if he suddenly woke up expecting imperial Rome and got a seedy 20th-century motel room instead. If there was that much left of him, anyway.

He propped his left ankle on the edge of the desk, crossed the right over his knee and slid further into his slouch on the room's single chair. He stretched his arms along the back of the chair and stared contemplatively at Sam, so fully and bonelessly asleep he hadn't even mustered up the energy to get undressed or even slide under the sheets. He didn't need to wonder at Sam's mental state. There was a foreign knot of emotions in the back of his head that, if he poked at it hard enough, would mirror what Sam was feeling at any given moment. Sam, right now, was serene and trusting and for the first time ever, completely unguarded. Gabriel had a silly little thrill of pride every time he prodded the knot and got those results, because it was _his_ doing. Sam was happy because _he _was there.

He dropped his elbow to the arm of the chair and propped his cheek against his hand to keep his vigil. Then he realized how ridiculous he must look and abruptly straightened. God, he was totally besotted.

If any of his brothers could see him now, they'd laugh until they hurt themselves.

Gabriel laced his fingers together behind his head and managed to tear his gaze away from the slumbering hunter to stare at the ceiling, which wasn't Sam and was therefore infinitely less interesting. Was this what he was going to do with the rest of his life? Hover around Sam and wait for something to happen? Bat his eyelashes and stare with calf-eyes at Gigantor until he was needed to smite or fetch a sandwich? Because _yeah_, that sounded like a whole big _sack_ of giggles. Bond or no, he'd be fucked if he let himself turn into a housewife.

So what options did that leave him with? He figured it came down to proactivity and reactivity, and it was time to take a good, hard look at his track record with proactivity. To put it starkly, it was balls. Virtually everything he'd ever done had been in reaction to something or another. Leaving Heaven. Claiming a vessel. Hooking up with the pagan gods and his most recent stint as a doler of poetic justice. That was all reactionary first to Dad taking a stroll for a pack of smokes and forgetting to come back, and then a desire to blend in with the natives. The most proactive thing he'd done in his entire memory was scaring the shit out of Lilith and revealing himself to Sam. And the jury was still out on much of it.

He also had the niggling suspicion that, if he kept throwing around insane amounts of power like he'd been doing, Heaven might not stick to their apparent hands-off policy. And if there was one thing he _didn't_ want, it was Michael's pointy nose stuck firmly in his business.

So maybe it was time to stick his decidedly more attractive nose into _their_ business. Pre-empt them at their own game. He hadn't exactly told Sam the truth when he stated he was the only angel on earth. He hadn't exactly lied, but he hadn't been completely honest either. He'd sensed a couple of his brothers from time to time, though he'd stayed well away from them.

If he tried hard enough, he could probably find them.

Did he want to try?

Unbidden, his gaze returned to Sam sprawled on the bed. He drew in a breath and let it out slowly, and dragged his hand down his face. Yeah. He supposed he did, after all.

He moved to the side of the bed and hesitated. He really didn't want to leave Sam here by himself, alone, unprotected, but neither could he wake up the hunter and drag him along. First off, he didn't even know where he was going yet and secondly, Sam was grumpy before his post-sleep coffee, and would ask too many questions Gabriel didn't want to answer.

The nosy sasquatch was good at that.

Well, was he an archangel, or was he an archangel?

Gabriel laid two fingers on Sam's forehead, deepening the sleep and laying a protective Enochian sigil all at the same time. He smirked to himself, blew imaginary smoke from the tips of his fingers, and gave into the urge to smooth Sam's hair away from his forehead. He most certainly wasn't going to kiss that Cro-Magnon expanse, however. No, he really wasn't.

Aw, screw it. He was.

"Gotta go to work, Sammy," he murmured into the sleeping hunter's ear. "Don't wait up. I might run late."

Sam smiled goofily and snuggled into his pillow. Gabriel was disgusted by how warm and gooey that simple gesture made him feel.

He took a few moments longer to lay a few more angelic wards around the room, notably on entrances before he nodded with satisfaction. If anything touched Sam, the rune he'd brushed into Sam's skin would warn him, but Gabriel was a big proponent of overkill. If they wanted to get at Sam, they'd have to get through wards that would fricassee a nephilim in two seconds.

Not an exaggeration. He'd tested them on nephilim.

Barring gifting Sam his flaming Sword, there was nothing else Gabriel could do to make him safer. Now he was just stalling. Gabriel told that flutter of separation anxiety in his gut to shut the fuck up, and he was gone.

=0=

Even though he was actively searching, it still took Gabriel an irritatingly long time to pinpoint another source of angelic power. In retrospect, he should have figured it would; obviously, whichever of his brothers it was would want to fly as far under the radar as Gabriel had. And maybe to the untrained eye, it would have been just another spot of supernatural weirdness that was ironically natural to the world.

But Gabriel had spent an awfully long time studying the natural supernatural in order to mimic it flawlessly. All the better to hide, my dear. And this pile of power had some glaring errors.

Gabriel took himself there with a thought and found himself in front of a sprawling house that was terribly tacky and elegantly palatial all at the same time. Gabriel was impressed despite himself. Also slightly jealous. In all his years, he'd never come up with a lair or a bachelor pad even halfway as trashy.

Of course, that gave him some idea of who lived here.

This was going to be _fun_.

With a negligent finger-flick, the door swung open, and he stepped inside. There were no lights on in the porch or the front hall, but the floor was vibrating beneath the soles of his shoes with a heavy, throbbing bass. He glanced around, taking in the artwork and tasteless statues before shrugging and following the thumping of the music further into the house.

He moved into a room with an honest-to-Dad disco ball, where red and blue lights strobed across an empty dance floor. It was distracting, disorienting, which was totally the point. The hairs on the back of his neck rose, and a whisper of sound from behind was his only warning.

He manifested his angel blade as he swung around to block the blow, and sparks showered as it crashed into another sword just like it. Never one to underdo things, Gabriel followed that up with an outflung hand that picked up his attacker and pinned him halfway up the far wall.

"Bloody hell!" His opponent was a thin, sandy-haired man with a British accent who was dressed like he had just fallen off the B-league porn truck. He was also hiding the essence of the archangel Jegudiel who, by _far_, had been Gabriel's most favorite brother. "_Gabriel_? Is that you?"

Gabriel spun his wrist to flick his blade out of existence again. "Hey bro. How's it going?"

=0=

"It's something of a fad now," Jegudiel said, swirling his scotch around his glass. He'd snapped a couch into existence and if it wasn't the comfiest thing Gabriel had ever planted his ass on, he'd never admit it. "Ridiculous, really. No one knows who anyone else is anymore. We just change our names and our faces at a whim." His face twisted into a grimace as he took a healthy swig from the glass. "Which does _wonders_ for fostering kinship and trust, let me tell you."

Gabriel bit through a freshly created peppermint stick, crunching the pieces loudly. "So I wouldn't be welcomed with open arms were I to pop home, is what you're saying."

Jegudiel snorted. "Uriel could likely care less, you know how he is. But Raphael has a price on that pointy little head of yours, so I wouldn't advise any visits home in the near future." He tilted his head consideringly. "Michael probably would be happy to see you, but that blithering idiot would French-kiss Luci if he thought it would bring him back into the fold."

Gabriel wrinkled his nose in distaste. "Gah. Thanks for the imagery. Now my bucket list is complete. _Become a pagan god, enjoy the fuck out of Earth, imagine my brothers tongue-wrestling._"

Jegudiel's eyes danced over the rim of the glass. "You have to admit, it would make the Apocalypse a hell of a lot more fun."

Gabriel stilled. "Speaking of the Apocalypse…"

Jegudiel sighed. "Must we? It's a dreary subject."

"It's also on the docket."

An eyebrow went up. "Is it? Says who?"

Gabriel sighed. "Believe it or not, Dad."

Jegudiel leaned forward so fast Gabriel nearly got splashed with scotch. "You've been in contact with Dad?"

"Not… as such." How was he going to put this? "He snatched me up and scolded me a few weeks ago, and that was the last I actually _spoke _to him." Gabriel paused, then shrugged. "I'm pretty sure I've felt his attention a few times, though. That kinda feeling is hard to forget, no matter how long it's been."

"Well, Dad can keep his omnipresent eyes to himself, as far as I'm concerned. It took me a long time to get the sack up to leave, and I've no intention of going back, or getting any more involved with their little games."

Gabriel pulled another mint stick out of thin air. "Their little games are going to come to you sooner or later," he pointed out. "Mikey and Luci's little spat isn't exactly subtle. And it's revving up. Can't you feel it? We've got major players hitting everywhere. Lilith is out, bro."

Jegudiel didn't look too happy with that information, but Gabriel was disconcertingly realizing that his brother seemed to give the same amount of damns he had when he high-tailed it out the Pearly Gates. That is to say, _none_.

Gabriel tried a different tactic, a blunter more direct one, because Sam wasn't going to sleep forever and time was running short. "Look, if Luci and Mikey have their little prizefight, it's going to trash the whole world. And you could keep your head down, sure, but there wouldn't be booze, boobs or blow left when all's said and done, so what would keep you entertained?"

Jegudiel's lips pursed. "You may have a point there, I'll concede you that." In the next instant, his face was all indecision and coyness again. "I don't know, brother. It might be a tad less crowded if the Apocalypse happened. But I suppose humans aren't so bad. I suppose."

Gabriel's smile sharpened. He had his brother now. "I've become rather attached to them over the years."

"That might explain a few things," Jegudiel said, leaning in to peer at him curiously. He lifted a hand and swirled his finger through the air at him. "You've gone and bonded," he added with a delighted, somewhat smug grin. "Hah! I knew it would get you sooner or later! Little Gabriel, finally a guardian angel! Who's the lucky sot?"

Gabriel scowled and stood up. It was long past time to leave. "None of your damned business," he said.

Jegudiel _hmm_ed. "You know I'll find out sooner or later."

His fingers itched for his angel blade, and his shoulders itched with puffing feathers. "Better later than sooner, I think."

"Don't want to share your toys, little brother?"

"Do you remember the nephilim wars, Jegudiel?"

"Yes. Why?"

"Do you remember how protective I was of the humans?"

"I seem to recall a certain savagery in your behavior, yes."

"Think of how much worse it would be if I were _motivated_." Gabriel was inordinately pleased at the sudden spike of fear in his brother's eyes. "Yeah. It's like that. So don't be a bag of dicks, and I won't have to shiv you. Capiche?"

Both hands came up in the universal sign of don't-kill-me-I'm-unarmed. "I hear you, loud and clear, Gabriel. No need to get touchy."

"Good. With that out of the way, we're all sunshine and rainbows again. And just in time too. I really have to run." He paused a moment, his hand raised to fingersnap back to the motel. "Before I go, I have a question."

"Hmm?"

"You went through all the trouble of reshaping your identity and… Balthazar? _Really_? That's the _best _you could come up with?"

"I would have chosen _Loki_, but it seemed that one was already taken." Jegudiel smirked and made a shooing motion. "Off with you now, shoulder angel. We'll speak again."

"If I have to hunt your ass down again, we'll do more than speak."

Jegudiel's soft, mocking laughter chased him all the way back to the motel.


	6. Chapter 6

**Title**: To Weather Any Storm (5/7)  
**Author**: **ficlicious**  
**Rating**: R  
**Pairing**: Sam/Gabriel  
**Warnings**: Explicit Language, Pre-Slash (Pairing Sam/Gabriel). Violence. Angst. Wings.  
**Spoilers**: General S3, notably "Mystery Spot". General Season 4. Season 5, up to "Hammer of the Gods"  
**Disclaimer**: I'm not making any money from this. Kripke just makes awesome toys.  
**Note**: Intended as a lead-in to an AU that swerves off during Hammer of the Gods (5x19) and carries through the Apocalypse.  
**Characters**: Sam, Gabriel, God, Dean, Castiel, Ruby, Raphael, Assorted Angels, Others  
**Genres**: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Drama, Spiritual  
**Summary**: He wasn't always a trickster. Once upon a time, he'd been an archangel and, once upon a time, he had a hand in creating a very special soul. The days harbinging Lucifer's return are making it harder for him to stay away from that soul and, to tell the truth, he really doesn't want to anyway.  
**Theme Music**: Cold, "With My Mind"  
**Word Count**: 2,213

In dreams, Sam flew.

His wings stretched wide and caught the air, and it was perfectly natural to twitch a feather and zoom through the sky, a laugh bubbling from his chest. The land stretched before him, pristine wilderness of crystal blue lakes and endless, virgin forests in a riot of colors, unfolding like a gift as the miles whisked away. He played tag with clouds and skimmed through wisps of fog, felt the refreshing spray of a waterfall as it smashed into boulders smooth with age.

He didn't know how he knew, but he _knew_. This wasn't a dream, it was a memory. A composite of sensations and memory-fragments from a time when the world had been shiny and new and pure. Sam flew for what seemed like forever, reveling in the sheer simplicity of the dream. He'd never known this kind of freedom. It was heady and exhilarating, diving wildly and gliding on thermals and it had such clarity, Sam kept forgetting it wasn't really his dream. It was Gabriel's.

He lit on a mountaintop, marveling at the crisp air and how clear the sky was. No smog, no planes, nothing but an expanse of blue. He sat there until the sun descended below the horizon, slowly spreading a paint of soft pastels in the heavens above him.

The sky abruptly blackened and a sudden wind carried a rotten smell on the air, and Sam realized he wasn't alone anymore.

He stood and turned around, nearly falling off the mountain when he registered the two people standing behind him. A slender, black-haired woman with the black cataracts of a demon and a sickeningly familiar feel. A tall, thin black man with a face that might as well have been carved from granite.

"Hey Sam!" the demon said cheerfully, and Sam went cold. Ruby.

Somehow, he didn't think he was dreaming anymore.

=0=

Gabriel knew there was something wrong the second he blinked into the motel room. Sam was twitching on the bed, a faint sheen of sweat over his forehead. The smell of rotten eggs hung heavy in the air, and darkness pressed down on him like stone. Gabriel froze for a moment, eyes darting left and right. He didn't just rely on his vessel's poor senses; he stretched his angelic ones, peering into every sub-dimensional nook and cranny for what every instinct he had screamed at him was there.

The room, save for Sam and himself, was empty.

He flicked his hands to either side, and Enochian sigils flared to visibility, bright and gold. They hung in the air in lines of fire, as pristine as the moment he'd drawn them. His wards hadn't been breached. So how the _hell_ had a demon slipped in past them?

Sam moaned and flailed again, and Gabriel flitted to his side. He laid a hand on Sam's forehead and hissed at the heat roiling off him. He shook light into his palm, sent healing Grace flowing into Sam, but incredibly, it skittered off, slid sideways, pooled uselessly around Sam's sides. Gabriel closed his eyes and took a breath, forced himself to focus, as if maybe control had been the problem. But a second application of laying of hands proved just as useless. Gabriel ground his teeth together, feeling the molars grate. Alright then. Time to get creative.

The glow brightened to near-painful levels as he expanded almost beyond his vessel's capacity to hold him. Maybe he could brute-force his way through whatever the hell was blocking him from helping. A miniature sun birthed itself in his palms and he divided the light, braced himself and slammed his hands down on Sam's chest. He should have spent more time bracing himself. The resulting explosion of energy threw him across the room and through the wall.

Gabriel coughed as he picked himself up out of the plaster and groaned. "Ow," he said, clutching his ribs. "That was fun." He climbed through the Gabriel-shaped hole and went back to Sam as quickly as he could limp. There was no change. At all. A burst like that, enough to knock an archangel ass over teakettle, should have at the very least scratched the far less sturdy human. But Sam was completely unmarked. His brow furrowed. He was officially out of his league here. It was time to go for reinforcements. Luckily, he'd just spent a few hours reacquainting himself with one of those reinforcements.

Halfway to the door, a sudden suspicion stopped him cold. There were seven angels stronger than him. Strong enough to slide around his wards without disturbing them. Strong enough to hide from his sight. Of those seven, one never left Heaven, one wouldn't stoop to this sort of behavior, one wouldn't have hid himself, one he trusted, one was missing, and one was locked in a cage.

But one had apparently put a price on his head, and held a grudge longer and more bitterly than even Lucifer.

His shoulders tensed. "Alright, you've got my attention. The joke's over. So get your grubby little paws off my human and get your jollies elsewhere."

Wings rustled behind him. Cool metal slid through his fingers. Gabriel turned around.

"Hello, Gabriel," Raphael said, folding the hands of his borrowed body neatly in front of him. "It's been a long time."

"Not _nearly_ long enough, Raphael." He circled back into the room, getting between his brother and Sam, with his blade up defensively. But all Raphael did was turn in place, watching him with mild disinterest. "You're my brother, and I love you. But if you don't let Sam out of whatever mindtrip you're locked him in and get out of here in the next ten seconds—" He raised the blade another couple of inches to emphasize his point. "—I'm going to light you up from the inside out."

Gabriel could remember a time Raphael laughed. He was half-expecting it now, expecting a hint of condescending laughter. Because honestly? The notion of little brother taking big brother out _was_ somewhat laughable. But Raphael's lips didn't quirk. His eyes didn't crinkle. There wasn't so much as a hint of humor anywhere in his face. "As if you could. Really, Gabriel. Did you think I'd come alone?"

Gabriel didn't like the sound of that, and he glanced left and right, but couldn't see anything. "I didn't think you'd come at all. Isn't it your century to be attached at the hip to some prophet?"

"It's yours," and there was just a hint of anger in Raphael's voice. "But you knew that. With you ignoring your duty, it falls to the rest of us to pick up your slack."

Gabriel shrugged. "What can I say? I never did like a hostile work environment, so I had myself a wildcat strike. And I hear I inspired other disgruntled employees to take a strike action of their own. Tell me, how's Jegudiel and Selaphiel these days?"

As quickly as it had come, Raphael's anger faded, and his expression returned to its blank slate. "The traitors will be found and dealt with, in time."

He smirked. Jegudiel, at least, would give him a run for his money. "Good luck with that."

Raphael shook his head slightly. "Sarcasm has never become you, Gabriel."

"And apathy has never become you, Raphael. So I suppose we'll both just have to suck it up and learn to deal." He tilted his head to glance over his shoulder, where Sam was still twitching on the bed. "What did you do to him?"

"Is that concern I hear in your voice, brother?"

"Damn straight it is."

Raphael's lips curved oh-so slightly. "You needn't be. The vessel won't be harmed. He's very important to our plans."

Gabriel stuck the tip of his little finger in his ear and wiggled it. Surely he couldn't have heard that right. "I'm sorry, what? Vessel?"

Raphael nodded once. "The vessel."

"Sam isn't a vessel." Gabriel would know, after all. He built the soul himself with his own two hands. Was connected to it even now, a deep, strong golden cord that went from angel to hunter and back again. There wasn't even a hint of vessel-dom in all that connection.

"Not yet," Raphael said, and there was a hint of something in his tone Gabriel _really _didn't like. "But he has the potential to be, with the proper preparation."

His feathers ruffled, and his hand white-knuckled on the hilt of his blade. "Yeah," he said. "That's not going to happen."

"I'm sorry," Raphael said, "but it is."

This was it, then. Gabriel took a deep breath and let it out in a rush of air. He could take Raphael.

But Raphael had gotten a lot better at concealment in Gabriel's absence, because Gabriel hadn't even suspected there were _that _many angels hidden from his sight.

"As I said," Raphael continued as the garrison kept popping into the room around him, "I didn't come alone."

Against Raphael, Gabriel had stood a chance. Big brother was stronger, but Gabriel had spent untold years on Earth, playing with pagans and monsters and humans. He might not have had overwhelming strength, but he was by far the wilier and craftier of the two of them. Against dozens of angels fledged from the same garrison, his odds plummeted drastically. Toss in an archangel, and he'd be squished like a bug. But that didn't mean he wasn't going to try.

He just had to try one last-ditch effort first. "I'm not kidding around anymore, Raphael."

"I was never kidding around, Gabriel."

Yeah, that was about the answer he'd expected.

As the first angels started towards him, Gabriel lit up like a supernova, flashing all six wings, crown of fire, blazing Sword, the whole shebang. The first rank of the garrison fell back like wheat, seared by his aura, but the rows behind kept coming, using the bodies of their flightmates as shields against his fire, silver blades glittering like shards of ice in their hands.

Fun and games were over.

They came at him in a rush, and Gabriel stabbed out, making a clean strike through the heart of the nearest angel. He pulled his blade back, whirled and stabbed, whirled and stabbed. Blue light erupted from their corpses, but Gabriel had already moved on to disarm a fourth angel and snap a fifth straight into the heart of a volcano.

He didn't relish battle, but that didn't mean he wasn't good at it. He was a friggin' seraphim, after all.

He fell into the rhythm of combat, dredging up every last iota of instinct that had served him so well in the nephilim wars. From the corner of his eye, he caught the flicker of a blade coming for him, parried it, and smashed the wielder into the wall with his tertiary wing. _Son of a bitch, that hurt!_

The tip of another blade skimmed his cheek, parting the flesh. He snarled, squeezed his hand closed and popped that angel's head like a grape, using the carcass to bowl over several more with a flick of his wrist.

Three angels jumped him from behind. He flexed his wings, tossing them off like ragdolls. But more came in their place, silent, blank, good little Heavenly soldiers. As many as he flung off, as many as he killed, more came to take their places until finally, it was the sheer weight of their combined bodies that dropped him to the floor.

Flat on his back, arms and legs and wings pinned by the survivors of the garrison, Gabriel stared at his brother. He could taste blood in his mouth, and his ribs were screaming and his heart was beating way too fast. It was going to take an awful lot of Grace to heal up this sort of damage.

If, you know, he survived whatever Raphael was going to do to him.

His brother walked forward, crouching beside Gabriel. His face was still blank. "This is your last chance to repent and come home, Gabriel."

"Screw you, Raphael." Gabriel struggled, but he was too well trapped to do more than lift a fingertip.

"Vulgarity and sarcasm." Raphael shook his head. "What happened to you, Gabriel? This was never like you."

"You don't have the slightest inkling what I'm like, Raphael," he spat, lifting a primary wing with herculean effort only to have it slammed down again. "You never did."

"Clearly." Raphael raised two fingers to Gabriel's forehead, and he suddenly knew what Raphael intended.

Gabriel snorted. "You can't put the whammy on me, Raphael. I'm an archangel. No one but God has the power to do that."

Raphael smiled then, an actual smile that froze Gabriel's blood in his veins. "You'd be surprised what you can do when you pool the power of hundreds of angels together," he said simply, and pressed his fingertips to a spot between Gabriel's eyes. The smile slid away, and his face was cold. "You've derailed too many of our plans, Gabriel. And Heaven has passed its judgement. None of this ever happened."

The fingers pressed hard. Golden light exploded into his eyes. Fire burned into his mind. Gabriel screamed for a very brief time before the world went white and then went away.


	7. Chapter 7

**Title**: To Weather Any Storm (5/7)  
**Author**: **ficlicious**  
**Rating**: R  
**Pairing**: Sam/Gabriel  
**Warnings**: Explicit Language, Pre-Slash (Pairing Sam/Gabriel). Violence. Angst. Wings.  
**Spoilers**: General S3, notably "Mystery Spot". General Season 4. Season 5, up to "Hammer of the Gods"  
**Disclaimer**: I'm not making any money from this. Kripke just makes awesome toys.  
**Note**: Intended as a lead-in to an AU that swerves off during Hammer of the Gods (5x19) and carries through the Apocalypse.  
**Characters**: Sam, Gabriel, God, Dean, Castiel, Ruby, Raphael, Assorted Angels, Others  
**Genres**: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Drama, Spiritual  
**Summary**: He wasn't always a trickster. Once upon a time, he'd been an archangel and, once upon a time, he had a hand in creating a very special soul. The days harbinging Lucifer's return are making it harder for him to stay away from that soul and, to tell the truth, he really doesn't want to anyway.  
**Word Count**: ~1,300

=0=

Gabriel returned to consciousness abruptly. He sat up and regretted it almost immediately, as his the killer headache lurking in his brain exploded. He hunched over with his arms on his knees, waiting for the pain to subside, hissing labored breaths through his nose. His body didn't feel all that stellar either, once he could properly take stock of it. Ribs, hands, face, legs, knees, toes… Everything hurt, right down to the follicles on his head. Felt like he'd been in a mosh pit with Thor, Hercules and Lord Ganesh. Those three muttonheads had used him as a trampoline the last time he partied at Dionysus' pad with the whole gang.

Even though he'd sworn he'd never go back after that drag-down bitchfight with Kali at the last get-together, he must have. He was missing several rather large chunks of the last few weeks in his memory, and very few things could do that to him. Dionysus' homebrew ambrosia was one of them.

He stood up, turning around and around in place to take in his surroundings. A flat, dusty plain, two-lane road, and some weathered poles stringing black cables into eternity. Probably still in the good old US of A, the air just kind of had that feel to it. He squinted against the brightness of the sun, which wasn't making his headache any better, and raised a hand to shield his eyes. e hadn't the slightest clue where he was or how he'd gotten there.

He staggered up to the road, peering down both directions. There wasn't a car in sight and, with the amount of dust and lack of tire treads on the road, there wasn't one expected to pass any time soon.

He snapped his fingers to be elsewhere, but he didn't budge an inch. Gabriel blinked and snapped again, but the result was the same. His reserve of Grace was responding sluggishly, like it too was hungover. Too low on the mojo. Batteries drained like he'd taken on the armies of Heaven single-handed. Or been in a mosh pit with burly gods of strength and violence. It'd recharge, it always did, but in the meantime, it looked like he was walking.

Must have been one hell of a kegger.

=0=

Sam woke up disoriented, bolting awake in the darkness of early morning. His heart raced as if he had just run a marathon, chest heaving with ragged breaths. It took several long minutes before he could pry his hands off the bedsheets and swipe the sweat off his face.

He had never had a peaceful dream. As he understood them from his college psych classes, dreams were the body's way of processing experiences and that it wasn't a very understood field, despite what the Dream Analysis section of Barnes & Noble might claim. Sam didn't know about any of that, but what he did understand was that he lived a life full of demons and monsters, so other people didn't have to dream about disembowellings and burning fiancées pinned to ceilings and various brands of ick washing away in a shower drain.

He leaned forward, finally managing to wrangle his breathing back to some semblance of control. Tonight's dream had been a new take on an old theme, with its own bizarre twists just to make it that extra bit special. Falling out of the sky only to land at a frat house filled with six-armed women and goat-legged men drinking out of a keg made of fused human bones was definitely a new one for him, but the real kicker was the Trickster, the one that had made his life absolute misery for three hundred Tuesdays in a row, tipping back a long, bone-white etched horn while seated on a wolf the size of an elephant.

For some reason, the Trickster had massive golden wings.

The bedclothes stirred beside him, and Ruby peered bleary-eyed at him from under the sheets. "Sam?" she said, voice sleep-heavy. "You okay?"

"Yeah," he said. "I just had a really weird dream."

Ruby snuggled back into her pillow. "You should get some rest," she purred, eyes half-slitted like a cat's. "We have work to do. You need your sleep."

"Yeah. Sorry I woke you." Sam lay back down on the bed, staring unseeingly at the ceiling for a long time. He was still awake when the sun came up, hours later, with a vaguely disconcerted churning in the pit of his stomach. Something was seriously wrong, but for the life of him, he couldn't figure out what it was.

=0=

Three weeks later, Gabriel finally admitted to himself that maybe it wasn't just a hangover.

His Grace had replenished somewhat slower than he was used to, but he topped right up to previous levels without much of an issue. Physical injury healed decently, at just above human average until his batteries were charged enough to speed things along. Normally, the memories would likewise sort themselves out, but when his strength was brimming and his vessel tiptop once again, there was still a gaping hole in the middle of his mind.

He poked and prodded at it, but the spot stayed annoyingly, glaringly blank.

It bothered him more than he cared to admit. Gabriel didn't _have _holes in his memory. He had perfect clarity all the way back to the moment of his creation. He remembered the lights flipping on, the first protein forming in the primordial soup, the first hairy ape that stood on two feet, the first glorious city crafted by entirely mortal hand. He'd seen empires rise and fall, nations come together and crumble away, villages expand into sprawling metropolis before vanishing into the mists of time.

He didn't _do _memory loss. He might sometimes misplace a memory, let it slip back into the back of his head, but when he went searching for it, it _always _returned.

Yet here he was. With memory loss.

He was tired of examining his own mind, gingerly feeling around the sharp and shiny edges. He pulled a tootsie pop from the ether and stuck it in his mouth, feeling somewhat better with the quick rush of sugar. Dogs barked in the distance, the excited baying of hounds on the trail, and he turned to look out over the misty hills, the sun-dappled wood.

He snapped his fingers, and four cages containing foxes popped into place at his feet. He crouched by the cages, lollipop stick hanging out of the corner of his mouth. "Now, boys," he said, laying his hands on opposite cages, and relishing the way the foxes cowered away from him, "I know you all came out here on a hunting trip, expecting to bag yourselves some foxes. Well, try to see it from the fox's point of view."

He snapped his fingers again, and the cages vanished. The four foxes, who up until that morning had been rich, arrogant assholes who got their jollies terrorizing small furry critters, milled about in confusion and fear.

The dogs bayed again. The foxes bolted, vanishing over the grass and into the trees. Gabriel stood up, the Trickster's smile firmly in place. "Enjoy the hunt!" he called with a mocking little finger-wave as the last white-tipped tail vanished into the brush. "I know I will!"

=0=

Somewhere in Illinois, Dean Winchester crawled out of his own grave.

Several hours later, he and Bobby Singer banged on the door of a cheap motel room, looking for Sam.

Moments after that, in a seedy bar in Reykjavik, Gabriel's attention was abruptly yanked away from his poker game as _fearhaterageangerhopejoydisb elief _spun through the hole in the middle of his mind.


	8. End

**This story is complete. **

**There is a sequel posted, titled "Road to the Apocalypse".**

**Thank you all, for following and commenting. Your words and interest are incredibly appreciated. :)**


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